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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25726108">All That is Mine, I Swear to You Again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maddy02/pseuds/Maddy02'>Maddy02</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff, Ridiculous levels of fluff, Romance, hand-holding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:40:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25726108</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maddy02/pseuds/Maddy02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>On the eve of their wedding, Byleth finds herself having doubts...</p>
<p>...Claude sets his clever mind to showing her how very simple it all is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>113</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>A Merry Kind of War</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All That is Mine, I Swear to You Again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runic/gifts">Runic</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>When the Kingdom of Runic joined<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/AMerryWarFE3H"> the war</a> between the Anam Alliance and the Empire of Maddy, I don’t think they realised what they were getting into by taking on the Empire.<br/>This is my retaliation. </p>
<p>Could I have combined my counter-attack against Runic and Anam into one fic and saved myself some effort? Yes, yes I could have.</p>
<p>But then it wouldn’t be <i>personal.</i> </p>
<p>MUAHAHA, MUAHAHAHAHAHAH, MUAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH-</p>
<p>-Look, I swear I’m not the baddie, ok?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Byleth leaned out over the railing of her balcony into the evening breeze, allowing it to sweep her hair back as she closed her eyes and tried to order her tangled thoughts. The meetings and rehearsals had all gone well. She understood exactly what was expected of her. Where to stand, what to say, when to say it. Compared to winning a war and unifying two disparate countries, marrying Claude should be the easiest thing in the world.</p>
<p>Except…</p>
<p>"My heart beats for you."</p>
<p>She could see the appeal in it, as a romantic line. The idea that one continued to live for another person; that one's emotions were all caught up in <em>them</em>. She understood <em>that</em> notion <em>very clearly</em>.</p>
<p>The trouble of it was, her heart did not beat.</p>
<p>And she did not particularly care to lie in her wedding vows. Even if this was their second time, even though they had already been happily married for some moons now.</p>
<p>It <em>meant</em> something to Claude, for him to have asked her for another wedding in Almyra, after the overly ceremonious affair that had been the wedding in Fódlan. She knew with certainty that half of his reasoning, at least, was a scheme of some sort, a political statement, but the rest?</p>
<p>She rather suspected the rest was sentiment. Claude had told her many stories of feasts and fires he'd attended in his youth; of dancing, singing and shouting to the heavens, of exuberance, exhaustion and <em>joy unconstrained. </em>There must be a part of him that wished for it, that longed for his own celebration, for that part of his heritage to share in his achievements, accomplishments and dreams. Byleth would not be the one to deny him it.</p>
<p>Yet the vow rang false to her.</p>
<p>She did not wish to lie. Not in a vow. Not to <em>him.</em> She had her own share of sentiment too.</p>
<p>For all the secrets he'd once accused her of keeping, she never had lied to him. There was precious little she'd purposefully kept secret either. Even had she wanted to, Claude could read her too well these days.</p>
<p>So perhaps it was little wonder he could see something was bothering her now.</p>
<p>She'd been too wrapped up in her own thoughts to sense his approach until he'd come to stand at her side, gazing off the balcony into the endless sunset that adorned the boundless Almyran sky. She'd tensed as his arm nudged against hers, and of course he noticed it, but he didn't question it right away, allowing her the opportunity to come back to the present.</p>
<p>"Hey," he offered, once she'd relaxed and turned her face to him.</p>
<p>"Hey," she offered back, with the smile that came so easily in his company. His eyes lit up, and he took her hand from the balustrade to his lips, pressing a firm kiss against her knuckles before intertwining their fingers and allowing their hands to drift back down to rest, his thumb tracing idle patterns over her skin.</p>
<p>"Deep thoughts?"</p>
<p>Byleth hummed and allowed her gaze to drift back out over the horizon. "About tomorrow," She confirmed, and slowly allowed the words to form, drifting into the space between them. "About the vows. To say that my heart beats for you- I understand the intention, I could happily swear every part of myself to you, but this feels like a lie." She turned back to him once more, angling her body round to his and watched the complex play of thought behind his eyes as his clever mind raced ahead of her words towards an answer "I don't like the feeling." Byleth concluded.</p>
<p>His eyes scanned her face restlessly for a moment, before his hand gave hers the slightest squeeze and he drew himself up with all the regal grace he possessed.</p>
<p>"Then, we just make it not a lie." He announced</p>
<p>"Claude, my heart isn't going to start beating overnight." Byleth answered, shaking her head, but he only smiled; a handsome quirk to one side of his mouth and a softness to his eyes that was only ever visible to her, or to the Golden Deer -and only then in private.</p>
<p>He lifted their hands up to his lips once again to place a kiss against her open palm before lowering that hand to press against his chest. "This heart is yours" He said simply, earnestly "and it beats."</p>
<p>"That's not-" she interjected, but he cut her off, that smile widening into a grin, kingly grace forgotten almost as soon as he'd called upon it.</p>
<p>"It is! I gave it to you ages ago, and I appreciate how careful a custodian of it you've been my Love," he bent his neck down so they were forehead to forehead, nudging his nose against hers "my Wife."</p>
<p>Byleth flushed red and closed her eyes, as if not seeing him might somehow make the emotions he brought out in her easier to process. She felt more than heard the huff of his chuckle as she did so, but was too distracted by the hand not holding her own against his heart coming to rest at her waist to take offence at it. His thumb caressed easy circles under her ribs and she counted the arcs he drew with her breath as she ordered her thoughts.</p>
<p>"Is it enough?"</p>
<p>"…for me?" Claude asked when he thought he understood the question "Yes. Stars, Byleth, to me it's still a miracle you agreed to marry me <em>once</em>."</p>
<p>She opened her eyes again to look into his and found only honesty. Somehow, without a beating heart of her own to swear these vows on, she was enough for him. Somehow, though he had to share his heartbeat, she was still <em>more</em> than even he had dared to wish for.</p>
<p>She huffed her own relieved chuckle and pulled her hand from his chest so she could lay her head there instead, enfolding herself in his embrace and listening to that steady, comforting pulse.</p>
<p>Her heart beat for him.</p>
<p>Her heart beat within him.</p>
<p>Today, tomorrow, and every day thereafter.</p>
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